Review by Ian Keogh
Road of Courage was very much an anomaly in the 1970s Dragon’s Dream list of Roger Dean art collections and the visceral SF excess of Philippe Druillet, yet their brief was to present great art, and this qualifies.
Frank Hampson will always be remembered for what in the 1950s was the futuristic statement of Dan Dare, no matter how it’s dated, but Road of Courage (or The Road of Courage, as it was serialised), will eventually surely stand as his career peak. Considerable effort was expended on the adventures of England’s fictional first spaceman, but the life story of Jesus Christ was either material closer to his heart or his skill had evolved over the years. Unfortunately it was to be Hamspon’s last work for comics.
The plot is the work of Marcus Morris, founder of The Eagle, which serialised Road of Courage in 1960-1961. Considering Morris was an Anglican priest, he commendably avoids the obvious reverential route, retelling Jesus’ life in the context of the history of the Middle East and of its occupation by the Romans, and as stirring adventure involving action and rebellion. His Jesus is as much revolutionary as miracle worker, and while adapting Biblical stories, Morris ensures a greater understanding of Jesus as a man, and the dangers he faced. He highlights how it was life-threatening to offend either the Roman occupiers or the prevailing religious orthodoxy, which the Romans left in place, and regularly features rebel leader Bar-Abbas. However, Morris only produced the plot, and the script was written by the uncredited Guy Daniels once Hampson had drawn the pages.
While an unconventional treatment shouldn’t be underestimated, Hampson’s art sells it. He took the project seriously enough to commission a bust of Jesus for reference, and his many portraits present a serene thinker contemplating consequences, always controlled, giving greater power to the sequence when that lapses toward the end. Those many portraits of Jesus, and equally accomplished depictions of others showing greater personality, are amid narratively strong scenes of everyday life separated by bursts of action and danger. The horrors, such as crucifixion, are present, but never explicitly shown, a tasteful switching of viewpoint supplying the shock without breaching boundaries of good taste.
Hampson’s capacity for detail is immense, especially considering these are single page instalments featuring up to a dozen panels per page. The more memorable pages feature a form of splash. The Romans parading through a market place, Jesus riding into Bethany or Bar-Abbas leading a rebellion are magnificent illustrations over which Hampson must have laboured for many hours. Mention should also be made of the painted colour supplied by Joan Porter, which remains accomplished all these decades later.
The reproduction on this edition is crisp and clear, but the work is now more easily found combined with another period drama as Classic Bible Stories.
